He was our star, bigger even than the face of the franchise who came before him and was known simply as Junior.

LaDainian Tomlinson played nine years for the Chargers, and during that time the humble kid from Texas was San Diego’s coolest dude.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” Tomlinson said this week. “The fans in San Diego took to me.”

It’s actually pretty easy to explain.

He was the Chargers.

His smile and those ever-present diamond studs in his earlobes brightened a room. His annual Thanksgiving dinner giveaway filled the stomachs of thousands of needy families. Only those alive to remember watching Lance Alworth had ever witnessed grace and talent like that in a local stadium. If Qualcomm Stadium has ever been filled with more people than those that for the better part of a decade wore “21” to games, it was by those who wore Junior Seau’s “55” before him. But where Junior was a local boy whose celebrity was confined, LT took us national.

Picked fifth overall in the 2001 draft, Tomlinson was the cornerstone of a rebuilding effort for a team that had not been to the playoffs in five seasons and was coming off a 1-15 campaign.

It would be three more years before the Chargers would get back to the postseason, but Tomlinson immediately gave San Diegans a reason to be engrossed again.

He ran 339 times for 1,236 yards and 10 touchdowns his rookie year. The next season, he would gain a team-record 2,172 yards from scrimmage. In 2003, he would break that record with 2,323 scrimmage yards, as well as become the first player in NFL history to run for 1,000 yards and catch 100 passes in the same season.

Tomlinson would score at least 10 touchdowns in each of his nine seasons with the Chargers, and he is the only player to ever rush for at least 1,100 yards and at least 10 touchdowns in his first eight NFL seasons.

His time here coincided, not at all coincidentally, with the greatest period of success in Chargers history – five division titles in his final six seasons with the team. And for as wild as Seau could make the populace with his ferocious hits and signature celebrations, never has there been a love affair like this town had with the man who gave us perhaps the greatest singular moment in team history -- one that rivals Steve Garvey’s home run in Game 4 of the 1984 National League Championship Series and the next night’s “one hopper to Nettles to Wiggins, and the Padres have the National League Pennant.”

On Dec. 10, 2006, a packed and shaking stadium was the backdrop for Tomlinson setting the NFL record for touchdowns in a season by scoring three of them in a 48-20 victory over the Denver Broncos that also clinched the AFC West title for the Chargers.

Thankfully for all, an unpleasant split with the Chargers following the 2009 season seems like it never happened.

Tomlinson delivered an emotional remembrance at Junior Seau’s public memorial at Qualcomm Stadium in May 2012 and was feted with a standing ovation and the same chants of “LT, LT” that echoed through the stadium all those years. The next month, he signed a one-day contract with the team and retired as a Charger.

Tomlinson is now an analyst for the NFL Network, and he spends most of his off time in his home state of Texas. But the second annual LT5K run that benefit Tomlinson’s Touching Lives Foundation will be held at Liberty Station in June. Tomlinson also visits San Diego several times a year to check in on the Snug Pet Resort owned by he and his wife, LaTorsha.

“I’m still in a state of transition,” said Tomlinson, who retired after the 2011 season. “When I left those couple years, there was no connection … I’m trying to put that connection with San Diego back together.”